


objectivity (and other lies)

by softnow



Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
Genre: F/M, Introspection, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-05-01 01:51:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14509863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softnow/pseuds/softnow
Summary: nathaniel reflects after the elevator incident.





	objectivity (and other lies)

Nathaniel Plimpton III doesn’t believe in a lot of things. Naps. Sick days. Public transportation. He doesn’t believe in Christmas cards, or dogs wearing sweaters, or salad dressing. He definitely doesn’t believe in tandem bicycles, and don’t even get him started on The Pottery Barn. He doesn’t believe in casual Fridays, or deli meats, or Lyndon B. Johnson, who was the worst president, for obvious reasons. And above all, he absolutely, positively,  _absolutely_  does not believe in goosebumps.

And yet. And  _yet_.

He doesn’t recognize them for what they are at first. His normally lightning-fast brain suffers a total shutdown when she launches herself at him in the elevator. He’s too struck by the alarm and her mouth and the way it tastes like sugar to process what’s happening with his body. And when she flies away from him just as quickly, fleeing the elevator the moment the doors roll open, he mistakes it for simple arousal. He’s been aroused for hours—hell, tell the truth, all day, since he dreamt of her arching beneath him—but it didn’t feel quite like this. Prickly, like his nerve endings are working double-time to report what every inch of his clothing feels like against his skin.

He’s halfway to his car when it hits him. He freezes mid-step, yanking his sleeve up to be sure, and—

“ _Dammit._ ”

The hairs on his arm stand on end, and he’s acutely aware of the damn devil winds blowing against his overheated skin. Goosebumps.  _Goosebumps!_  On a  _Plimpton!_  What is he, a twelve-year-old girl at her first school dance, being touched on the waist by some pimple-faced freak for the first time?

Disgusting. He should have better control, and he knows it. The pressure below his belt is one thing—pure, primal instinct. But this? God.

He grimaces, straightening his sleeve and rubbing his arm vigorously, trying to force his skin into submission.

Rebecca fucking Bunch. He scoffs, unlocking his car. Not likely. No way. Nuh-uh.

—

The sun isn’t far from rising when Nathaniel finally gets home, but he isn’t tired. He feels sharp and tetchy, a stranger in his body.

He changes into running gear and sets out among the first rays of daylight. His path is mostly uphill and punishing, but he forces himself faster, faster, faster. Maybe if he beats enough concrete, he can beat the smell of her soap out of his brain. Just thinking about it makes him feel weird. Liquified. Malleable. Like parts of him aren’t quite in the right places.

The sun’s fully up by the time he returns, soaked in sweat and breathing hard but not feeling much better. In the shower, he stands with his hands against the wall and his head hung between his arms. The hot water stings his back.

_What’s so magical about first kisses?_

Nathaniel closes his eyes. He can still feel the tip of her nose where it pressed against his cheek, the warm puff of her breath against his mouth. He doesn’t want to feel these things (and he  _definitely_  doesn’t want to feel this creeping, tickling sensation at the back of his neck), but they come unbidden, relentless. Like the image of her at the window, blouse blown wide open, that he can’t seem to scrub away. How  _unprofessional_ , to stare the way he did. And yet.

And  _yet_.

He doesn’t understand it. His body, usually so carefully controlled, has run away from him, and for what? For  _her_? For the en _gahg_ ed woman who’s been nothing but a thorn in his side since he got to this town, the woman who speaks like a 1940s gumshoe and uses the phrase “ _man of my dreams_ ” to refer to her boring, brain-dead, water cooler of a fiancé?

And just what does she see in Josh Chan, anyway? Because—and not that he’s given any thought to this, because he hasn’t—he can’t see a single thing about that flip-flop-beach-bro that would attract someone like her.

Not that she’s anything special. She isn’t.

But she’s smart, and she’s quick, and she’s competent (when she actually works). She reads, and Nathaniel doubts this Josh Chan can parse meaning from the back of a Rice Krispies box. She’s funny, and Nathaniel doubts this Josh Chan knows anything about humor above a South Park level.

And yes, okay, yes, she’s decently attractive (in an unconventional way; not his type, but somebody’s, probably), and she kisses like she knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to take it, and Nathaniel wonders (objectively, as one does, when one is certainly not personally invested) if this Josh Chan knows anything about pleasing a woman like that.

Because—objectively—if the way she kissed him tonight is any indication, he was completely correct in assuming their sex is lame. A woman who kisses like that, like a bottled firecracker ready to explode, all push and pull and heat, needs so much more than whatever she’s getting. Not that he’s thought about it—he hasn’t—but he bets Josh Chan is the kind of guy to wear socks during sex. He bets Josh Chan keeps the television tuned to mindless Will Ferrell movies during sex. He bets Josh Chan thinks “seduction” is Costco wine and Bath and Bodyworks candles with names like “oceanfront terrace” and “midnight musk.”

And Rebecca Bunch may not be anything special (again: she isn’t), but a woman like her needs finer things. Expensive champagne. An excuse to wear high heels and do her hair and put on the lingerie she probably keeps at the back of her drawer, the stuff that’s thin and lacy and red, because she’d look good in red, wouldn’t she? Not that he’s thought about it. But objectively, with her skin tone, she would look good in red.

And sure, maybe she needs someone who can match her wit, too. Someone who speaks her language, who gets it. He can tell—again, purely objectively, from observing her because she’s an oddity, not because he cares—that she’s the sort of woman who likes to talk, and likes to be talked  _to_. She needs someone smart, someone who knows exactly what to say to make her tremble.

_Stop talking dirty._

The water is still scalding hot, but Nathaniel shivers. If she thought  _that_  was dirty… The things he could say to her. The things he could  _do_  to her.

…The things she could do to him.

His right hand leaves the shower wall.

It doesn’t take long. He’s been like a bowstring all day, pulled as taut as he can go, and the relief when it comes is both exquisite and inadequate.

Nathaniel rinses and towels off, contemplating—objectively—what Rebecca might look like with her curls wet against her cheeks. He knots the towel around his waist and regards himself in the mirror, pondering—objectively—what sort of moisturizer she uses to keep her skin so soft. He brushes his teeth and pulls on a pair of boxers, wondering—objectively—what she wears to bed.

Pajamas? An old t-shirt?

Nothing?

He makes a sweep of his apartment, turning off lights and pulling his curtains together to shut out the sun, before sliding between his sheets. His phone is on his bedside table, and he tells himself he’s only checking to make sure he hasn’t missed any important emails (at seven in the morning?). He’s definitely not checking to see if she’s texted him something like  _About tonight…_  or  _Are you up?_  or  _The engagement’s off; come over._

She hasn’t, obviously, and that’s fine, because he doesn’t care. Nope. Does not care at all.

And when he replaces his phone on the table and settles down into his pillows, he’s not thinking about her across town, in bed with Josh Sells-TVs-for-a-Living Chan. He’s not wondering if she woke him up when she got home to role-play, if maybe she called him Cedric, if she closed her eyes so she could imagine a different face. And he’s definitely, absolutely,  _definitely_  not wondering what she would look like here instead, with her head on his chest and her hair tickling his nose and her soft, soft breath on his skin.

He falls asleep not thinking about what it would be like to wake up to her beside him, and when he dreams of her this time, it has nothing to do with the wind.


End file.
